Alachua County NAACP president Evelyn Foxx has fought for civil rights since childhood

Evelyn Foxx joined the NAACP in the fifth grade in her hometown of Riceboro, Georgia, and has been fighting for the civil rights of all people, especially Blacks, ever since.

Foxx, 72, has been president of the Alachua County branch of the NAACP since 2010 after serving as vice president the previous eight or nine years, she said.

“I have a passion for the work I do because when I look around and see all of the injustices Black people and other marginalized people go through, it makes me want to continue fighting for justice and equality,” Foxx said.

Her passion fighting for the rights of people, equality and justice is fueled by the many calls she receives from people who say they have been treated unjustly.

“That kinds of keep me going,” Foxx said.

Jim Crow still alive

The current state of America is reminiscent of the Jim Crow era when Blacks were treated as second-class citizens, Foxx said.

Americans “are fighting for our democracy,” Foxx said.

“People are trying to take away things that many fought so hard to get and the only way to save our democracy is through the ballot box,” Foxx said.

“That is the strongest defense we have.”

Voting rights is at top of agenda

Voting rights issues are at the top of the NAACP’s national agenda and in local communities, Foxx said, especially in Florida, where the Republican-dominated legislative, executive and judicial arms of government are in control.

“Our state leadership is so profoundly bad,” Foxx said.

What some deem as voter suppression laws enacted in Florida in recent years will not thwart the efforts of voting rights advocates to continue encouraging and empowering people to participate in the political process, Foxx said.

Blacks are 'still crippled economically'

Though on the surface it appears that much has changed since the legal Jim Crow era, many aspects of life remain the same for Blacks, Foxx said.

“We are still crippled economically as a people, and Jim Crow is trying to come back again,” Foxx said. “Voter suppression and other tactics are being used to try to keep us down.”

One of those tactics is the state trying to manage how Black history is taught in public schools, Foxx said.

“How can you erase the history of Black Americans who have contributed so much to the building of this country?” Foxx asked rhetorically. “They are banning books that teach about Black history and the true history of this state and country. We have to educate voters in our communities about the importance of voting so we can elect people to office who care about the truth, equality and justice for all people, and not just some people.”

The NAACP is focused on voter registration, empowerment and education as next year’s election season nears, Foxx said, adding that whether people believe it or not, there is still a lot of hatred, bigotry and discrimination in the U.S.

Foxx taught early how to stand up to racism

Foxx moved to Gainesville 30 years ago after marrying Gainesville native George Foxx, whose family hail from the historic Porters community in southwest Gainesville.

Her experiences as a child growing up in Riceboro, Georgia, a small coastal city about 180 miles northeast of Gainesville, and especially her involvement as a young child with the NAACP, taught her a lot about how to stand up to racism, discrimination and injustice, she said.

Foxx has addressed pressing issues during her tenure

Addressing the school-to-prison pipeline, mental health in the Black community, youth empowerment and social and restorative justice issues have been focused on during her tenure as president, Foxx said.

“We are happy to see our youth and future leaders being active and preparing for the next chapter of their lives,” Foxx said during remarks given at the branch’s first every Youth Empowerment Brunch, held at Springhill Baptist Church in southeast Gainesville earlier this year. “We are dependent on you, so we have to prepare you for leadership when it’s time for you to take over.”

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The group’s attention to the “school-to-prison pipeline” helped in the school district’s push to curtail arresting students on campuses at the alarming rate they were doing so several years ago, Foxx said.

During a “State of the African American Community” forum in 2012, former Gainesville Police Department Chief Tony Jones said although Blacks made up 37 percent of the public school population in Alachua County, Black children between the ages of 10-17 made up 69 percent of all juvenile arrests.

The efforts of the branch’s education committee and others addressing the issue with school district officials, more attention is being paid to addressing the issue, Foxx said.

Blacks must remember their history

Foxx and the local NAACP have also been active with the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project’s Gainesville subcommittee, which was formed to bring light to the traumatic era of racial terror lynchings and to honor the lives of lynching victims in Gainesville and elsewhere.

Foxx has visited the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and has participated in several soil collection ceremonies hosted by the Gainesville subcommittee of the Alachua County Remembrance Project in partnership with the EJI.

While visiting the EJI, Foxx said, she saw the name of her great-great grandfather, Ben Howard, on a memorial item documenting his lynching on Aug. 23, 1893, in Liberty County, Georgia.

“Being a part of this is important to me because of what has happened to our ancestors in the past,” Foxx said. “I think every Black person needs to be a part of this.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: NAACP in Alachua County has been led by Evelyn Foxx for past 13 years